Richard was somewhat surprised that he had been asked to greet and look after such an important guest. Usually it would be his father or Uncle Cedric, certainly not the Prince in charge of such matters. He could not help but wonder what his father had in mind, but he was certainly up to the task, if only to spite Cedric who was clearly unhappy about it.
“I’d be more than happy to show you around. Is there anywhere in particular you would like to see. I’m afraid His Majesty is a bit busy at the moment, but he asked that I assure you he will be certain to come greet you as soon as he is able. I hope my company will suffice in the meantime.”
That is what Alexei would clarify this entire meeting. Sitting down with the princess, his fingers tapping uncomfortably against the edge of a chair while her Majesty, Estellise slowly poured a cup of tea and offered it towards the ex-commandant. Declining, Alexei tried to right himself, mentally going through the entire reason for this. Punishment seemed to be the best answer.
Continuing to tap his fingers her Majesty, Estellise took a sip of her tea.
“You never answered me.”
Here it comes.
Alexei’s finger stopped tapping for a second, his back straightened, his expression flattening, mouth pursing, shifting his weight back into his chair as he eyed over her Majesty’s own posture. Proper, back straight, legs crossed at the ankle, her gaze directly on him.
“Why are you here? How are you alive? What are you doing now?” There’s a pause and Alexei does not want to hear the next question. He knows what it’s going to be. He sees it in her Majesty’s face and he wants it to be dropped, but unfortunately she takes a breath as-if steeling herself. “Why did you do what you did?”
A stillness follows after the final question.
There’s an itching as his finger goes back to tapping away, the slight bouncing of a foot, gaze anywhere now but at the heir apparent. Trying to think through this.
The entire reason he’d even agreed to this ridiculous request was because he felt guilty (even though he shouldn’t feel that way, nor let his emotions push him in such uncalled [there is that word again] directions) and now he was paying the consequences. He didn’t want to be here.
Alexei was finally beginning to be able to move on. Finally able to lift his head once more without feeling as if every word he spoke was something horrid and wrong.
Perhaps this was the world’s way of reminding him he shouldn’t be. That he should always duck his head and hide. There’s a tightness in his throat as Alexei makes the princess wait. Her own finger tracing odd details in the tea cup, not daring to take another drink.
Clearing his throat, Alexei took a breath, forcing hands to come together in his lap, crossing one leg over the other. His gaze still not quite meeting her Majesty’s.
“I do not believe it is important to be explained. Actions speak for themselves.”
Hate him.
The words are unsaid, but it is implied, he believes. There’s a noise, something in the back of Estellise’s throat as she is looking at him. He knows she is. He can feel it. Her frustration at his answer, at how he is carefully working through this conversation.
“You’re making this very difficult.”
Alexei loosened his fingers from their position on his lap to lift them, gesturing lightly with a wave. “We could both say the same thing of each other. Your insistence on this meeting-”
“-Is understandable given what you’ve done!”
There was no response to give other then a sharp sucking in of breath. Alexei did not appreciate this. He’s been living. Quietly. He’s been keeping to himself, away from others except a very small handful (of which that handful came to him, not the other way around) and he was trying. Why would she see that? Why would she even care?
“It is still-” he begins, but never finishes as the soft clink of glass against wood interrupts him.
“I deserve an answer, Alexei.”
Deserve?
Deserve?
A deep breath is sucked into Alexei’s throat. Keep calm. He is the adult here. Ignorance is not something anyone should be punished for. Actions were.
“You know I do. Do you- I- you’ve hidden everything from me. So give me this!”
She doesn’t know what she’s asking for.
“I am here, because I am alive. I am alive because I…” was scared, “…was clever. And I am living. There. There are your answers. Now, if you will excuse me.”
Alexei goes to stand and he sees her move as he does.
“Those aren’t answers and you know it.”
Her voice is more restrained now. Keeping itself together more appropriately than before. Trying hard, Alexei thinks, to keep from being too aggravated at his evasion tactics.
“Besides, you left something out.”
“Did I?”
He could almost feel her teeth gritting together before the release of air escapes, “Why, Alexei?”
There’s no answer. Not at first. Alexei’s fingers tapping once more. This time at his pant leg. A nervous tick he has. Usually he can hide it. Whether it’s be forcing his hand be still or by a desk, but in this situation, Alexei is too itchy. He hasn’t had enough time to think, and he cannot, for the life of him, think of why, in this circumstance, that her Majesty cares. There was no reason to care.
The only thing she should do is hate him.
Like everyone else.
That was easier to handle than whatever this was. This digging for information, desperately clinging to something. Memories, perhaps, of when they both were younger. She had been five when they first met, six when he became commandant, and then eight when the war had started.
It all seemed like a day ago when it had happened.
“It does not matter.” Insisting as such was his only safe guard against those memories. His shoulders stiffening, his eyes closing, hand coming up to rub the bridge of his nose. “It is done. That is all.”
Trying to leave is hard because just one glance (he permits one and he regrets it almost instantly) tells him how she feels. Her fingers are balled up in her dress, her head is ducked, her brows furrowed and there’s the edges of tears in her gaze. But she isn’t sad. No. No Alexei knows what sad looks like.
This is anger.
Good.
She should- “Tell me why.” -this again. Alexei let out a frustrated sigh. He doesn’t want to. “Tell me. Why.” The way her Majesty insists is irritating. For multiple reasons.
“It doesn’t-”
“-It matters to me, Alexei! You keep on saying it’s done, it’s over, it doesn’t matter, but you hurt me! You really badly hurt me, and I just can’t accept it. I can’t. I need you to tell me.”
There’s a tightening in his throat as Alexei has to bite on his tongue. His fingers twitching uncomfortably, stopping their tapping.
“Please! For once in your life, think of someone else!”
Alexei turns on his heel and he’s taller than her. He knows he is, but he forgets sometimes just how much. Her head jerking back to meet his eyes and there’s frustration. Not just in her eyes, but his as well. Both paranoid and poised, as if they were to be attacked.
There’s water clinging to the edges of a determined expression, one hand quick to move behind her skirts to what Alexei can only determine to be her weapon.
“You don’t know anything about me, your Majesty.” The words are hissed through teeth, “Do not be so presumptuous then to assume-”
“How do you expect me to know anything when you won’t answer!”
The response rocks the commandant for only a second before he’s back, both still on their feet, but he’s turning now, the princess’s hand coming so close to touching at his arm before he’s yanking away. Pacing, he had to pace. Six steps left, twelve the opposite direction. Breathing slow, carefully.
He had no right to be frustrated.
He had no right to be worked up at all.
“Alexei-”
“-Quiet.” The growl is an unnatural noise from Alexei’s throat and he despises it.
“No. You don’t have the right or the authority to tell me what to do anymore!” the Princess’ voice raises sharply and Alexei’s stops his movement. Part of him wants to turn on her, but another wants to just dismiss her. Logically that is what he should do, but there is truth to what she says. If he does not speak, how would she know otherwise? It was conflicting, frustrating, confusing.
Physically distressing.
He does not pace again, but he’s tapping his foot, his finger, his teeth digging into his lower lip as he’s not even paying attention to his facial expression anymore. To the body language he is displaying. It is a thing most never would see from the prior commandant, but he needs his full concentration thinking. Not speaking.
The princess is waiting. Waiting for him to get angry, to get mad. (He should! He should get mad. Tell her off. But that would just be playing into her hands.) Dismissing this stubborn child is a problem, she won’t leave him alone if he does, but maybe if she get’s frustrated enough she would just leave him. Leave him be, leave him alone, simply leave. Is that a bad thing to hope for?
“I…”
How would Alexei even begin to explain the complexities of a government? The way it worked, how he had to hold himself, how he had all of these justifications, but none of them made it right.
“…It was…”
He’s slowly stopped moving, his hands coming up, crossing over his chest as he’s trying to find the right words to articulate himself.
“Everything.”
He had been so young when he’d been promoted to Commandant. Fresh out of the Academy, Just barely old enough to be considered alright for the position when he’d won that tourney. A test of skill. His ambitions were simple things, to bring an end to the incompetence of the Knights, to open it up for all those who wished to protect their city.
And he’d done it! With his second command.
“There were so many holes in the system, injustices getting away that I could do nothing about.”
He had to keep moving forward. His body lurched into motion. Pacing back and forth, his hands now moving, in the air, his voice cut and sharp. There were so many things he could point to. So many politicians he had put out of their seats, so much blackmail he had gathered to make them sit down instead of rip apart what he was building together.
“From the very beginning, and that isn’t including when the war began. Then when it ended, the souls in the tower, a noblemen, the insistence of a dead man I couldn’t save-” all of it had dropped on Alexei, on his shoulders. As if he had the answers. “-I was supposed to keep everything together. How do you keep them together when all are blind to the system? So I worked. I worked and I ripped it apart. Piece by piece.” He’s moving quicker, longer strides, trying to get some form of movement in this room, his words piecing together faster as well.
“I fixed it, or tried to. I dug for information, stories, anything I could get my hands on that would solve the problem, that would fix everything.” He’d been told in that time what he was. The perfect knight. The perfect thing to base everything on.
His words start stumbling after that point, rolling over each other as he tries to tell it. Tries to explain everything. The deals, the agreements, the stories he’d found, the information he hadn’t. He’s frustrated, still, but even as he stumbles around the words, the statements, it’s calculated, things he remembers doing.
That he wouldn’t do different…because he knew at the time, they were right. Or, parts of it was.
“No one could know-nobody, I had to, had to keep going.” The death, the blood, the gore on his hands. The singed fingertips, the loss, the pain, the nightmares. “I.”
“I. It had.” It had to work. If it didn’t, he had failed them all, failed everyone.
He had been such a fool. The greatest of them all.
“It wouldn’t.” Work, nothing worked, but it did at the same time. And by the time Alexei would even question it, he’d been too far gone. “I was…” He’s talking less and less now, his fingers starting to shake his throat tight, his eyes unable to leave the floor as he tried. Tried to hide how worked up this entire conversation made him.
He couldn’t move past it. No matter how hard he tried. Because things like this kept happening. Kept pushing him. Kept on hitting him in the head. He should know better by this point then, he supposed. His nightmares a reality of what he needed. Reminders that nothing he did would ever be worth forgiving. No matter how much help he was.
No matter how he tried.
He should know that by now. He’s learned that lesson how many times? (But sometimes it was different, Capel- Capel had saved him in that manner. Had offered him something none of the group even thought to do. A hand to help him, to get over himself.)
A hand slowly, hesitantly touches at his shoulder and Alexei is stiffening as the gloved fingers gently curl about the man’s shoulder and rub. Small, soothing, hesitant movements.
A weak laugh falls. Defeated, almost.
“It’s too much to ask.”
He cannot speak more of it. Even if she were to push. This is all the space he could give, and it had been more than he had given any of the others.
“Too much…”
Her majesty’s voice says something, hesitant as it was, but Alexei does not hear it. Instead, he goes to lightly brush her hand off. Large calloused hands collecting hers in something more soothing than any other than the small Capel would anticipate (and even him at first,) before pushing them away, and he stands.
Tall. Tall as he could. His expression quick to pull back emotion, hiding behind eyes and a pursed mouth. A rigid, awkward bow follows. A soft mumble escaping him of: “excuse me” and he leaves.
Pulling his hood over his face afterwards.
Silence enveloping the room, the tea cold, and a princess left to her own devices.
